[Ficture47]

Originally Posted by AJ56

It’s like saying the best sports cars are hydrogen fuel based when no major sports car mfg even offers hydrogen cars to begin with due to the tech having major limitations.

Turtle is one budget brand that does offer graphene and it failed multiple times in well under two years in my testing. (If you don’t want my word for it, see other detailers’ long term durability tests on YouTube, same result.)

Ulgo, CQuartz, and DQuartz are all silica based ceramic/glass/nano coatings (different terms, same meaning) as silica is the main element found in glass.

DQuartz actually has detonated nano diamonds in it, it’s not marketing, and it is physically harder than 9H on the pencil scale, they have SGS certification data to back this up.

Now it’s a relatively new formulation but given it’s based off CQuartz, which is one of the best in the industry, I have no doubt it’ll do very well. It’s holding up well in my test on my daily driven cars, but it’s still too early to confirm anything. (As real world durability tests take years to complete.)

With your experience you would have seen a diverse range of products. Even Graphene coatings use silica as the base, it is just infused with Graphene, could be just marketing, but Adam's worked much better than others in terms of durability. Agree that Graphene is too new to commit on durability, but cannot oversimplify and dismiss it. If you are referring to Turtle Wax's graphene spray series, yes, a spray coating will have much lesser durability and that shows with its ceramic, irrespective of Graphene or not. Real world, Turtle wax gave me like 2.5 to 3 months.
Turtle wax products are more focused on DIY enthusiasts(though they have professional products). Professional products like CarPro or Adam's by default give much more durability.

I keep seeing coatings being associated with gloss, this is again not true. On properly corrected paint, a coating adds zero gloss.

What gives paint gloss is proper machine polishing to remove surface defects and reduce orange peel (surface texture/distortion), hence the term paint correction.

Properly polished paint looks liquid wet with razor sharp reflections and image clarity. Adding a coating will have zero change in gloss, it will add hydrophobic properties and a lot of slickness, chemical and UV protection, minor hardness increase, but not gloss.

You are absolutely correct that a properly corrected and polished surface will have more gloss and reflection. However, I would argue that coatings like CQuartz, DQuartz, and graphene based products can subtly enhance the overall appearance by adding gloss and increased slickness. I have never meant that these coatings add gloss in the sense of correcting the paint, but they add a layer that intensifies the clarity of reflections and improves surface smoothness. It is about enhancement, not correction.

Also, don’t mix and match coatings by yourself, they’re formulated by chemists with a lot of R&D, it’s like mixing medicines, all you do is negatively impacting the coatings performance. There is no benefit to layering with the current gen formulations (unless it’s a two part system).

I definitely do not advocate mixing and matching as mind suggests, but use manufacturer's and professional advice before attempting based on the requirement. CarPro themselves recommend topping up DQuartz with CQuartz, but unsure how much value add it gives, I have not tried that.

In the end it is about balancing cost, convenience and durability.

[AJ56]

Originally Posted by Ficture47

Agree that Graphene is too new to commit on durability, but cannot oversimplify and dismiss it. If you are referring to Turtle Wax's graphene spray series, yes, a spray coating will have much lesser durability and that shows with its ceramic, irrespective of Graphene or not. Real world, Turtle wax gave me like 2.5 to 3 months.

Turtle wax products are more focused on DIY enthusiasts(though they have professional products). Professional products like CarPro or Adam's by default give much more durability.

I have never meant that these coatings add gloss in the sense of correcting the paint, but they add a layer that intensifies the clarity of reflections and improves surface smoothness.

To answer briefly-

1) Graphene isn’t new at all, it’s been around for nearly 9 years, B&B blending actually shared prototypes with detailers across the US back in the day, a few bottles of which I could get my hands on through my friend travelling back to India.

2) No ones dismissing it lightly, if a product fails to perform even after 9 years of repeated testing there is no further need to keep testing it until they change formulations. I’ve tried Artdeshine, Turtle, Adams, Covalent and a few more.

Like I said, don’t take my word for it, big names in the industry that spend millions on R&D every year have not even bothered offering graphene products, tells you all you need to know about the additive.

3) Never mentioned spray coatings, that’s comparing an entirely different product with liquid based pro coatings. Even here, Gyeon Cancoat will easily last 8-10 months, real world, on daily drivers.

4) Adams is not a professional product, it is simply a marketing company, they buy from industrial mfg’s like B&B blending and stick their label on it, white label in other words. They don’t have their own chemists/R&D/mfg. Neither do they have any certified installer program.

5) Adams graphene (liquid bottle claiming years of durability) performs very well initially, perfect hydrophobics and slickness. Within 8-9 months it starts dropping in performance and by 13-14 months it’s largely gone. Unlike the better brands which go years.

6) Turtle is a budget brand aimed more at the retail market, I’m referring to their pro coating lineup, the install on my bonnet was by done by their own guys during a sales visit. Went 9 months, which isn’t good even by retail coating standards, let alone pro coatings. (Carpro UK 3.0, aimed at the retail market goes 1-1.5 years).

7) Like I said, the only way to improve reflections (sharpness and clarity) is by reducing the orange peel or optical distortion in the paint by refining the surface, this is physically impossible to achieve without using abrasives.

The reason you’re seeing gloss levels increase post coating application is due to micro scratches/haze being filled in by the carrier solvents in the coating. This enhancement is temporary and will be lost in a few washes.

As for slickness, absolutely, coatings add a lot to slickness as bare paint is quite grabby.

[Sebring]

ULGO has done a great job on fellow BHPian old-dude's Skoda

[llamainblue]

Originally Posted by Sebring

ULGO has done a great job on fellow BHPian old-dude's Skoda

Would you happen to have any details of how this holds up after 2 or 3 years? Or is it too new in India to have that data?

[Sebring]

Not sure about this data, but 'they' said it has held up well for 3-5 years, (and I can only take their word regarding this). Plus there is their promise of 'top up' in case anything happens.

[Old Dude]

Originally Posted by llamainblue

Would you happen to have any details of how this holds up after 2 or 3 years? Or is it too new in India to have that data?

Hi friends,
I’m the proud owner of the Lava blue Skoda Kodiaq which a fellow BHPian has reposted above - the picture was taken when the car was brand new and the Ulgo glass coating just applied. I can vouch that the car, now two years and two months later still has the same level of clarity of gloss and no swirl marks yet - with daily use in Bangalore. I will try to take a picture in the same settings over the weekend and post a comparison over two years. Hydrophobicity is still good after two years.

It was a leap of faith I took going for Ulgo at that time, but two years later, I can say this is one decision I don’t regret.

I need to look up at my research material from then, but I remember the Ulgo Glass coating binding agent is more like an adhesive rather than chemically bonding with the paint like ceramic coatings claim.
Further, some comparisons indicated this is more resistant to hard water spots. In my experience, this coating has held up amazingly well over the past two years to bird droppings and tree sap ( the kind of sticky stuff you get when parked under a tree during twilight through night).

Disclaimer - I have an OCD when it comes to maintaining my cars, so I never allow the dust to become sticky dirt and clean my car daily using Jopasu and also a light spray of ProKlear waterless less wash and wipe with good quality clean microfiber. ( Yes, I know, daily contact wipe is against the holy grail of avoiding swirl marks, but that gives me extra confidence in this coating because there are no swirl marks yet in two years of of contact wiping) I use P&S Absolute rinseless wash once in a month or so for a deeper cleaning. Water wash with a cordless pressure washer only if muddy after rains.

It is true the Ulgo Glass coating does not have the jetting effect (deepens the colour) like most ceramic coatings do.

I did get the annual maintenance coat done at the end of year 1 and 2 from Dabler Auto, where they use a finishing compound to remove any swirl marks ( which were non existent in my case at least) and apply a spray on topper which is supposed to rejuvenate the coating. The guys at Dabler auto have been very professional and knowledgable, and have been treating the cars ( at least when I was present for my initial application as well as maintenance costs) with lot of TLC, the way I like my cars to be cared.

[brownkaiser]

Originally Posted by Old Dude

Hi friends,
I’m the proud owner of the Lava blue Skoda Kodiaq which a fellow BHPian has reposted above - the picture was taken when the car was brand new and the Ulgo glass coating just applied. I can vouch that the car, now two years and two months later still has the same level of clarity of gloss and no swirl marks yet - with daily use in Bangalore.

Thanks for the update. Could you tell how much you had to pay back then? Thanks.

[Sebring]

Just love the way my car 'glints'.

Sometimes my OCD gets the better of me, when bikers get too close, and I keep an eye out .
One guy even brushed his soft luggage (Pannier) against my car, and I have no scrape marks.


Feeling relieved and
I thank everyone at ULGO India profusely.

[Old Dude]

Originally Posted by brownkaiser

Thanks for the update. Could you tell how much you had to pay back then? Thanks.

Don’t remember the exact breakdown of the cost, was in the 45K range considering Kodiaq is a a big car with lot of surface area. Got PPF for the bumpers, ORVMs, spoiler and also all internal and external piano black parts, heat rejecting film for all windshields / windows / sunroof and alloy wheel coating as a package for 78K in Feb 2023.